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Ask HN: One of the YC Demo Day companies has built my idea, what should I do?

8 points by nikz ↗ HN
I was watching the YC Demo Day coverage with interest, seeing a few cool new companies emerge.

My heart sank when I saw one particular company (I won't name names). They had pretty much built the app I've reserved the next 3-or-so months to create.

I'm wondering what I should do. The market seems big enough to support two (or more) competitors, but ideas are a dime a dozen.

Should I pick something new, or stick it out and try to kick ass?

13 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 46.5 ms ] thread
sandipagr
There is always room for a competitor. I think you should launch as soon as possible. Don't worry much about your competition. They already have edge on you but you can build a better product or carve some useful feature.

Good Luck!

markstansbury
Fact.

No such thing as a market with just one company. Just make sure you do it better!

cperciva
Are they hiring? Being the first employee at a company which is working on an idea you're excited about might be almost as good as being the founder.
nikz
This means I'd end up with 5% of the company (if I'm lucky) according to most of what I've read (could be wrong, of course).

The theory over there seems to be that the founders keep as much of the equity as possible, and pass it out the 1st/2nd/3rd employees in very small parcels.

Normally when I build a product here, it will be more of a 3rd/3rd/3rd split (Design/Dev/Business), or at least 20%/20%/60%.

I guess that means I'd prefer to be a founder, take on the extra risk (and the chance of extra reward!)

d0m
Still, maybe they'd prefere sharing with you and getting a great other cofounder then facing your awesome app in 3 months :p
Shooter
We've recently invested in 4-5 companies that are very similar to startups in this latest batch of YC companies...and it has happened before. Sometimes it makes me queasy, but I usually take it as a confirmation signal that there is a market opening. Competition should not discourage you unless you're in a tiny market. And there are very few 'tiny' markets.

Unless you have a more compelling idea, I would "stick it out and try to kick ass" ;-)

Best of luck to you.

nikz
Thanks, I guess I should say the same to you! :)
nl
It depends - are you sure this isn't a winner-take-all market and do you have something that gives you some unique advantage over them?

Perhaps you have unique insights into the market which they don't understand? (Eg, Foursquare vs Google Latitude)

Perhaps you have a launch strategy that gives you something better users (Eg, Facebook vs MySpace)

Perhaps you can do a better job (eg, Dropbox vs every other previous backup service, Google vs every previous search engine)

They have money, first mover advantage and the advantage of YC contacts. Are you advantages enough to win?

nikz
Interesting points, and some food for thought. Thanks for that.

I'm not sure it's a "winner take all" market - there's no real "social"/"viral" aspect, just the usual "word-of-mouth" that people aim for.

We have no money (don't need it), no YC contacts and it seems we'll be entering later - so we better have some other (big!) advantages ready.

coryl
Competition is indeed overrated. Everyone wants to be first/fastest/biggest, but quicker/cheaper/smarter competitors always pop up regardless of the industry you're in.
ehsanul
After I started working on my idea, I found a firefox plugin with over 1 million downloads doing something extremely similar. And they had 12 guys with angel investment working on it too. Yesterday I found Google has a plugin to do it as well, with over 60k users who love it, and another startup apparently has 4.5 million downloads of their plugin, also in the same space (partially at least).

And yet, all it does is motivates me to "kick ass", as you put it so well. Let it motivate you as well. Having competitors:

1. Validates the market for you

2. Makes you work harder and faster than you otherwise might have

3. Let's you see where they went wrong and avoid their mistakes and do what they did right, but better

danilocampos
3 is a great point. Having competitors washes out to a boatload of free R&D. A bunch of mistakes you don't have to make. Learn everything you can about what your competitor has done and move forward. Who knows -- you might hit on something interesting mid-way through and pivot to an even better idea.
revorad
I've been waiting for a YC company to build a competing product to mine and I was delighted to hear about it this demo day.

I think it's time to keep calm and carry on.